The Two Lairigs (and Stob Dubh)

This weekend training became a secondary priority as I moved house from Glencoe to Inchree (a few miles down the road). After a good training run up to 902m on Friday, I spent Saturday just packing boxes! However, I decided that I needed to contribute 'something' over the weekend towards my training for the UK big 3....

SUNDAY: I got up a 6am and decided to squeeze in a long hill run before tackling the move! I settled on the Two Lairings, following the historic coffin trail (plus Stob Dubh), which amounted to 17.7km (11 miles) and 1183m ascent.

I started at the Buachaille Etive Beag carpark (the one by the beehive cairn) and headed up to the col that I visited with Arlene earlier in the week (745m). From here I headed SW over a subsidiary top at 902m and then continued along the ridge to Stob Dubh, the second munro on Buachaille Etive Beag (958m).

The weather was pretty disgusting (and a lot worse that I had optimistically hoped for after some bursts of spring sunshine on Saturday afternoon). The rain was heavy and turned to wet snow and hail at times over 800m. It was also quite blustery; a remnant left over from the upland gales which hampered efforts towards the end of last week.



Track along the ridge to stob Dubh









Allt Lairig Eilde

From Stob Dubh, I dropped back to the col before taking a traversing westerly line down towards the river Allt Lairig Eilde. After crossing the river, I joined the Lairig Eilde, a brilliant track running the length of the glen between Beinn Fhada and Buachaille Etive Beag. From the col at the head of the valley (490m) the track makes for excellent running alongside the river towards Glen Etive.

The key here is not to drop too far down this track and instead pull off early and contour the slopes of Stob Dubh to join the river Allt Gartain as high as possible. This reduces the pull up towards the col at 490m between Buachaille Etive Beag and Buachaille Etive Mor. The views looking back towards Glen Etive from here are fabulous!

The best bit of this run begins at this col. A relatively new track (the Lairig Gartain) runs all the way down the glen, alongside the river and down to join the A82.  It is an excellent 5km descent!!

From the layby on the A82 I returned to my car by taking the small track just north of the road (which incidentally is a total bog-fest...knee deep in places!!)

Feeling quite sad to be leaving Glencoe and will miss seeing the Pap out of my window! Goodbye.... 

Pap of Glencoe Saturday afternoon